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Relationships

A good relationship is based on trust and so the stories suggesting that Renault is accusing Red Bull’s Adrian Newey of lying is a pretty good illustration of where that relationship is currently headed. Or to put it another way. This is a disaster. Considering that the two parties shared four consecutive World Championships between 2010 and 2013, one has to say that this smacks of fair weather friends turning on one another when the storm clouds gather. And I’m not sure I see how they are going to live happily ever after again.

Renault is working hard on its engine but seems to be planning a future with its own team to get more coverage. At the same time Red Bull is rumoured to be working with Ilmor Engineering to try to improve the existing Renault power units. It all sounds like a divorce in the making with Red Bull heading off to pastures new. But where? And how? The only way one can see the team getting a new manufacturer engine deal at the moment would be to build an engine itself and then convince a car company to badge it, a trick that Roger Penske pulled off years ago with the original Ilmor when he wanted to get GM into IndyCar racing with the Chevrolet brand. Give a car company a cheap deal to get into F1 and you may end up with a suitable partner, willing to pay in the future. It will be interesting to watch…

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I find myself in agreement with all you write. This has the inevitable divorce at the end of 2015 written large, which leaves me to wonder where Herr Mateschitz will go for his jollies in the future? While it has been speculated on, ownership of the “FIA Red Bull Formula One World Championship” is the sort of sound that just might make business sense and provide a much bigger platform for his product.
While he would want to get his money back, I get the feeling he would be a better custodian than the current incumbents. He would certainly know how to promote it better than currently.
Be careful what you wish for…………

Disaster indeed. Its amazing to watch how Red Bull has gored their relationship with Renault so openly. I understand F1 is ruthless, but the pairing went for 4 straight championships and Red Bull chose a tact that is just bonkers and off the deep end, without giving Renault any benefit of the doubt. I think its audacious on Red Bull’s part, given the history of Renault in the sport. Renault won before Red Bull energy drinks were even an idea in Mateschitz brain, and they’ll win again after they dump these ingrates from Milton Keynes and Austria.

I’ve been saying the same thing about Red Bull and Rensult third last few days. I’ve said it’s not a matter of if, but when. I read Tuesday that Renault stated not to expect their engine winning any races this year. There’s only been one race this year and they’re throwing in the towel! Red Bull would be best suited having Roger Penske’s Ilmore company design them an engine. The Illmore facility in England is only a design office however. Their production facility is in Michigan where they manufacture the Chevrolet Indy engines, along with their Chevy based V8 and Dodge based V10 marine engines. I’m not sure if there is room for an F1 program there or not? If not, they may be able to farm it out to perhaps Judd to manufacture? There may be others. I doubt Mercedes or Ferrari would be interested in Red Bull and going to Honda would be akin to jumping from the frying pan into the fire. As for Renault, with an attitude of giving up for the year, what’s the point of saying they want their own team? Really? They should just give up and go Drink crems at a sidewalk cafe in Paris and listen to a violinist playing Stepnane Grapelli/Django Reinhardt tunes from the Hot Club.

I have not seen the Renault vs Newey stories yet, but my interest is aroused. From what you gave said it sounds a terrible shame. Irrespective of those stories, I had thought Renault didn’t get anywhere near the warranted publicity for their 4 WDC’s with Vettel. I couldn’t comment as to whether that was RBR’s fault for the way they celebrated their wins or the fault of Renault for not advertising it more.

I am surprised, though not doubtful, that Renault are looking for their own team. It seems only a few years back I was surprised they were selling to Lotus, although I guess they needed to step away due to the race fixing incident. I expect that when a manufacturer shuts up shop they are gone for a decade or more, at least as team owners, but technically, and politically (I guess, again, a lot of guessing), it’s a different ball game now.

RBR as engine suppliers…
is there where we start talking about Audi/VW again perhaps…
I am too programmed to think of Ford/GM as V8 manufacturers, even today, but I assume they are remote possibilities as well. The RBR brand association could well be the best way to reposition either for a younger, tech savvy demographic.

Not the best way to improve the Red Bull performance, by having a rather sad slanging match with the engine manufacturer! Surely, if Ilmor are involved, then that would break a whole load of contractual items with Renault? G.

With senior Red Bull staff putting on record their dislike for the current regulations and threats to quit F1, you’d probably be looking for signs of commitment to the project if you were a car manufacturer thinking about getting into bed with them.

There seem to be plenty of scraps of F1 teams and teams hungry for money lying around at the moment if Renault can’t persuade RB to sell STR, but they don’t seem to be trying too hard to make that an easy task. RBR want to be a works team, but unless they corner the market for an existing power pack (which they have already done with Renault) they will end up like mclaren this year implementing a new system. Renault have a sweet deal, two “works” teams so plenty of testing and running data around, I can’t understand why they would poison that – but their motives are their own and I’m not aware of the intentions of their senior management. Looking forward to how this one plays out…

There is one engine deal: if Honda make reasonable progress, then perhaps Honda might be interested in supplying Red Bull. That might depend on whether the McLaren are delivering the chassis package or not. Clearly, Red Bull’s problem is that neither Merc nor Ferrari will supply an engine to a team likely to beat them.

Perhaps the days of a de facto single spec engine that the Cosworth era represented wasn’t so bad, but Ferrari could never wear that.

I’d be interested to know what you think the likelihood of Red Bull walking away from F1 is short term?

They’re a soft drink company (well marketing company actually) and have no long term vested interest in F1. I think we all know they’ll walk away at some point when they feel they’ve had all the value and I expect they’ll do it in similar fashion to how BMW did.

If Red Bull and TR went or become unfunded it would be a total nightmare for F1 in it’s current state. They must wield a lot of influence with Bernie.

Well it seems Red Bull have come to a cross roads and if they are considering quitting F1 now would be the time to do it………returning to not just winning races but championships is it seems RB requiring a new engine partner which means time and a rethink to its structure and strategy……..I still think BMW is a possible option..

If this turns out to be the case I think it would be good for F1. At least 1 more engine would be good insurance against one or more of the current suppliers pulling out in some corporate change of plan.

Renault should be producing the goods but although this is an incredibly competitive business it seems very churlish of them (Red Bull) to be so publicly critical after the many years of success for which Renault got very little credit.

If I was Renault I would be quite happy to leave them in the lurch take back Lotus and show them all. However this is a number crunching thing at the end of the day for a company this size (and with the heritage for example with Williams) – and they might just decide it’s not worth the hassle and to leave what would then just be a Mercedes-Benz and minority Ferrari grid to get on with it

The Ilmor news in particular was really interesting, I didn’t realise Mr Illien was still about. I thought they’d been absorbed by Mercedes’ powertrain division – is the Brixworth lot a different bunch to the late 90s operation?

Perhaps the bigger worry if if Dietrich Mateschitz is only a fair weather friend to Bernie and another 4 cars disappear from the grid.

While I agree with you that Merc have clearly done a better job. If Renault could not build an equivalent PU in two years, perhaps the mountain created by these rules is just too steep for the pinnacle of competitive motor racing.

Perhaps the basis of the Renault engine could be the platform for Red Bull to develop funded by Infiniti, which I think provides Infiniti with what they wanted which is to badge the engine and provides an exit for Renault to focus on their owne team.

According to the German AMuS, Red Bull ordered a Virtual Test Track to test an engine in combination with a gearbox and chassis. The only (logical) reason to do this is that they want to build their own engine.

The other speculation I’ve seen for Red Bull or STR is that Dietrich Matteschitz may sell the whole lot to Audi/VW although doubtless they (Audi/VW) would want/need a long lead-in time for a new engine having seen the difficulties that Honda currently have

Can’t say I’m shedding any tears over it, as I’m not a fan of the Red Bull ethic – bend every rule and twist every arm to your advantage when you’re winning, whine when you’re losing. And all with the sole intention of aggressively promoting the fizzy drink brand.

Never ever a good idea to rubbish your engine supplier. They will pay for this somewhere some time and it won’t be pretty. The pressure of being outperformed by their junior team must be getting to them.

Maybe a bit behind the times but I thought Ilmor turned into Mercedes?

I never got the sense neither party really valued the partnership enough in the V8 days Renault never really got much from it, you always remember a Williams Renault and I’m sure non F1 people of the time knew of Renault’s involvement in F1. I doubt non F1 fans would have a clue Renault were winning with Red Bull (There was never a Renault Clio Red Bull but there was actually rumors of another Clio Williams as soon as Williams started paying for their engines a few years ago).

And having another car brand stuck on the Red Bulls is frankly bizarre.

I’d rather see manufacturers as engine suppliers rather than teams as they tend to only last a few years before they give up. I can see Renault buying one of the teams and getting beaten by Lotus and others then leaving eventually. The biggest problem with a Renault team is that it won’t be able to run a Mercedes engine!

Well, you’d better first do a web search for Renault Sport Clio Red Bull or Renault Sport Megane Red Bull. But I am under impression you’d rather lead people from here to a T-shirt selling web site. Can’t see how otherwise quite rigorous Joe missed that. 🙂

Or, on the other hand, you don’t need an engine deal if you’re not running a team… Could Horner be showing us his his road-company Uncle Bernard, trying to distract attention from negotiations with Audi or whoever, or alternately trying to put RBR in a position of being able to say that they have no choice but to terminate the Renault contract?

Although it can’t be Audi, surely — would Dr Piech want to do a deal with an outfit and people who have such close ties to Princes Gate?

Having said that, I can see their point about the regulations. Renault missed the boat last year and the token system sort of removes the ability to catch up. It appears Renault should be looking at a new power unit (at vast cost), not tinkering what they’ve got, but it’s not clear if they can do that.

I’m a huge fan of the new units – it’s amazing that they can do a race at similar speed with 30% less fuel, however there needs to be an ability to make significant improvements when a supplier is so far behind. The token system is too restrictive.

Red Bull should look on the bright side…. at least they aren’t powered by Honda!

Just read Auto Hebdo’s web site abbreviated interview with Cyril Abiteboul and in the main he’s fair with his comments about Renault but also refers to their chassis ‘partners’ problems at the same time. Seems fair enough to me. It’s a bit rich of Red Bull to be so critical of a company who brought them so much glory, helping to put them at the top table of the sport (particularly financially). It looks very arrogant.

I said the relationship was heading down the wrong road last year . The only surprise in my mind being its taking this long for the inevitable outcome . That being either A) Red Bull pulling out of F1 .. B) creating their own engine … or C) finding another engine partner . I’ll guess …. A !

But hey .. this whole week has been a round of the FIA ” Blame Game ” thru out the paddock . Red Bull’s blaming Renault .. Renault blaming Red Bull .. Kaltenborn blaming VdG [ for having the nerve to demand his contract be lived up to ] .. everybody’s got both Honda and McLaren in their sights for a multitude of ills … the FIA’s blaming the fans for the lousy TV numbers in Australia [ gee … it couldn’t possibly be because the racing stinks now … could it ? ] .. Uncle Bernie seems to be blaming everyone for everything et al ad nauseam

Wouldn’t it be nice … just once … for a change of pace mind you … if everyone just for a moment .. accepted and admitted to their own culpability ?

Nahh .. Never happen . Its simply too much to ask a bunch of aging ,pampered , self indulgent , out of touch , prima donna , post-adolescents acting like five year olds to suddenly start acting like adults .Hmmn . Funny . I’ve made the same comment about our US congress lately . Must be something in the air … hmmn ..

PS; Hey Joe . An offer . I have an essay in mind …. ” Why Formula One is going down the same path as Opera did a century ago ” … I’d like to contribute to the site . The essence of the essay comparing how opera went from the music for the masses to its current status as the sole domain of the exclusive and wealthy : becoming irrelevant in the process : and why F1 in my opinion is following the same disastrous path . Gratis of course … in light of my no online business transactions and a thanks for all you do . Let me know if you’ve any interest . If not … no insult taken …

Certainly seems the sport of late is looking quite tattered about the edges. All of this strum und drand is doing no one in the sport any good. Conflict can make for great spectating: case in point 2014 battle royale between Lewis and Nico. Sadly, the Sauber mess and the on-going he said, she said between Red Bull and Renault is just tiring with no drama beyond finger pointing. F1 needs to man up…

Joe – I seem to recall many folks calling the Red Bull F1 team a “marketing exercise” when they came into F1 (I don’t know if you were one of them). It seemed to be laced with a bit of skepticism as to their resolve to stay in the sport though it can be argued that all F1 is a marketing exercise.

With the titles under their belt and, if I recall, Red Bull being tied to the sport until 2020 is it realistic to think they could simply pull out of F1 instead of ramping up the effort to build/brand an engine? We’ve seen through Mercedes and Honda how difficult that can be…though we’ve also seen Red Bull build a winning team with the right people (and the right about of cash).

At what point do you think RB’s saber rattling turns into actually tossing the toys from the pram and walking out?

From memory Toyota walked out of the sport a few weeks after signing on to the Concorde Agreement in 2009.

My main concern for Red Bull given the purpose to their existence isn’t to go racing, is what else do they have to prove? They have won the titles in the past, aren’t going to this year, and by the time they are in a position to do so their main design gurus mind will be on a regatta in the Bahamas.

For a company that is big on its brand and how it makes its customer feel Id say they will approaching this subject very gingerly.

When Adrian Newey first arrived at Red Bull he was faced with a contract that said his car would be fitted with a Ferrari engine, and, the Toro Rosso which he was essentially also designing was to have a Renault engine. For weeks Newey screamed and shouted NO NO NO NO NO I will not design a car with a Ferrari engine, under no circumstance, NEVER, fogetaboutit! After a while Ferrari said okay Adrian we will break the contract and switch with Toro Rosso, Renault agreed.
Will Newey now change his mind if Ferrari should offer them their good performing engine? F1 is full of moments of poetic justice lets just enjoy this one as it passes, should it come to pass.

What is your feeling on a potential VW/Audi tie up with Red Bull in the not to distant future, Joe and what sort of lead-times would you feel is needed for such a project?
Not sure if Audi would be entirely happy badging a ‘Red Bull/AVL’ engine or say, a Cosworth engine necessarily considering they are an ‘engine’ company as it were…
…it is just that depsite the annual rumour mill of a VAG involvement in F1, VAG’s responses to them this time around seem less black and white suggesting something may indeed be brewing, with recent appointments such as Domenicali’s adding fuel to the fire –
Joe, do you plan on running a story on this at all anytime soon, specifically re a potential Audi/Red Bull tie up – would love to read your insights/views

That’s Red Bull for you though, purely marketing. You’ve got to hand it to them, like Benetton before them, they saw an opportunity and took it. Everyone’s made a lot of money out of it but maybe it’s time to move be on? I’m guessing Joe knows Audi won’t come in yet but Red Bull’s ideal if they want to.

I wonder if Red Bull could switch to Honda? I can’t imagine Honda have come back into F1 just to work with a single team, and I’d have thought RB would get more success teaming up with a renowned Engine company like Honda then attempt to build their own, albeit working with a company like Ilmor (are they still connected to Mercedes in anyway or have the same staff as in the Ilmor-Merc heyday?)

If Red Bull could entice a new engine partner into F1, that would be very good for the sport, but that hinges on RB’s commitment to F1. Do you believe Red Bull intends to stay, or do they think their story has finished, given the apparent mountain of work it would take for them to start winning again? I could still see Matschitz selling up wholesale to Renault come the end of the season. Either way, accusing your “exclusive” partner (remember the pre season banter about RB en Renault being that much closer now that both RB teams were the only customers for Renault) of lying smells of burning boats, bridges, whatever.

Why not another Illmor badged as a Chevy? There is an IndyCar engine program up and running with Illmor engineers. It’s a turbocharged engine, as well. Chevy Europe has shown the moxy to run a WTCC campaign. It’s a possibility, at least.

I’m well aware of Chevy’s diminished European presence. Perhaps my point wasn’t clear. The WTCC example was cited to show that the brand will race on a global scale; Chevy races Corvettes at the 24 Hours of Le Mans because it’s a global platform (like F1). Illmor has already developed a turbocharged six-cylinder for IndyCar. There is an obvious opportunity. I don’t think Chevy is retreating from global motorsport.

The trouble here is that two vastly experienced F1 engine makers (Renault and Honda) currently appear to be struggling to build a really competitive F1 engine. Ferrari seem to have recovered a bit since last year but they’re still behind. I can’t imagine any manufacturer outside F1 relishing the prospect of joining in, getting lapped and being forced to see positives in coming last.

Makes me wonder if the current engine regs are just too difficult?

Any talk of Red Bull doing their own engine would seem to require they have McLaren-like levels of optimism!

The problem is it was Renault who fought so hard to get these regs pushed through. They believed when it came to small capacity turbo engines they’d have an advantage as it was more relevant to them and their road cars. They were wrong.

F1 is supposed to be about showcasing your technical abilities applied to a given problem. Any car manufacturer should really want to demonstrate that. The problem at the moment is the cost to be competitive.

Numerous reports over the last couple of weeks have suggested that if Renault buys a team to revive its works presence, then the team it is most likely to buy is Toro Rosso. But any sale depends on a certain level of trust between the vendor and the buyer, and if the relationship between Red Bull and Renault has broken down as badly as it seems, does this make it less likely that Mateschitz will be able, or indeed willing, to agree terms with Renault? Won’t Renault now have to look elsewhere than Faenza if they want a revived works team?

I see it so plainly that redbull is not going anywhere. Red Bull has enough money to research the building of an f1 engine. They’ve always spoke about it. So in front of everyones eyes comes Ilmor to learn from Renault how it all happens. Renault says they not around to be investing for other engine builders to learn from them so they stopped really developing the engine and save a few dollars. And in a year or two we will have Red Bull giving enough money to Ilmor to build an f1 engine and badge it a Red Bull.

There are advantages of being the only (or primary) user of an engine – you ought to be able to influence the engine/gearbox design to opimise the overall packaging. This is why Mclaren ditched the awesome Mercedes engine to work with Honda and why they are willing to take the pain – in the end they will have some advantage from being the “works” team.

So I don’t think RB will jump to Honda or Mercedes because in both cases they would appear to be disadvantaged by not being the works team (not to mention the rubbishosity of the Honda engine at present means you would be mad to switch to it).

Their best bets at this stage would be to work with Renault to improve the engine OR to work with a non-F1 engine supplier to design and test and engine that is better than the Mercedes, then switch to that engine some number of seasons from now.

The new engine manufacturer route is perhaps best because it allows you to spend spend spend and change the engine design over and over until you get it right; if you start with a homologated engine you’re stuck with the restricted-development rules.

So if it were my £1billion I would spend it on a new engine supplier.

Bickering in public with your engine supplier makes no sense, unless this is the preamble to some secret plan – always a possibility in F1!

Looking at the current number of suppliers and their origin (car makers) what are the chances of new and private ventures to try and enter the arena, I remember in the past there was an ill fated attempt by Hart to create an engine, Yamaha provided one and I can recall that there was an engine maker called “Asia Tech” who attempted. I am sure I missed more (Mechachrome, Cosworth).
But is there a real chance we can see such a “privateer” coming into F1? Or is the current engine to complicated and expensive?

Joe, should Red Bull leave F1 (and I for one wouldn’t be sorry to see them go after their carry on this year so far and in general the way CH has since he came to power), what happens to the yearly money that Christian Horner negotiated out of Bernie for Red Bull. Does it go to the new owners? If so, wouldn’t Renault be pretty keen to buy Milton Keynes and not anyone else?

Mark Webber was a bloke who called it how it was, and he was always praising the driveability of the Renault when others were giving the team all the accolades. A large part of RBRs success was exhaust blowing, and you have to give Renault credit for part of that. Car was pretty trick though – can’t deny that, and it still is (I think).

Flash forward to this season, RBR have reason to be cut at Renault. They had the best starting point at the end of 2013, then got out developed by Merc buy about 1.5sec for 2014. Now for 2015, they have even been out developed by Ferrari by a similar margin.

when Newey says the car doesn’t get into its zone and explains the snowballing effect of everything not being at its optimum (tyres, brakes, aero etc) because the engine is down on power, i tend to believe that. A relatively inexperienced non tech guy like Cyril calling a great like Newey a liar is a pretty poor attempt at stiring up some smoke and mirrors.

McLaren on the other hand know what they are in for, so you would expect them to give Honda 2 years PR grace to catch up. Renault being so crap was a surprise to everyone.

And therein lies a major issue in the relationship…when Red Bull was winning everything, it was all down to Red Bull. When they stopped winning, it was because of the incompetence of Renault. If you were married to somebody like Red Bull, would you be keen to stick around?

To be fair to Renault, their engines have generally (although not at present) had excellent driveability, which has been a key factor in the success. They have also played a significant part in the downforce advantage at times.

The point now is that in Melbourne, the Red Bulls with two experienced drivers, one of whom won three Grand Prix last year, were matched for pace by the Toro Rossos with two complete F1 novices. This rather suggests that the Red Bull may be slower than the Toro Rosso at this point. Hence Renault’s complaint that Red Bull are in a weak position to very publicly heap all of the blame on the engine.

As the Toro Rossos seem to be in broadly the same position vis a vis say Williams as they were in 2014, it does rather suggest that it isn’t so much the engine getting relatively worse as the Red Bull chassis package having dropped off the pace.

> To be fair to Renault, their engines have generally (although not at present) had excellent driveability, which has been a key factor in the success.

To be fair to Red Bull, I don’t remember hearing this from them. Not once. My understanding of Renault’s contribution has all come from third party analysis of what has made Red Bull so fast. All I’ve ever heard from the team is that other people’s engine are more powerful and that Renaul engines have consistently been a liability for Red Bull’s championship-winning cars.

Horner & Co. must have used up their whining tokens for the past two seasons. Win or lose, this team has the most ingrained whiny and entitled culture in F1, possibly excepting only Ferrari under Montezemolo. Take all the credit for wins, publicly slam partners for the losses. Even with a problematic Renault power-plant I can’t pity them due to their lack of civility even in the good times. No class.

I made a couple of comments early on on this article which don’t seem to have been published for whatever reason to the effect that I didn’t think RB were being very loyal to the engine supplier that has given them the championships for the last few years.

On a totally different subject of relationships Fernando and McLaren don’t seem to have hit it off very well so far following the press conference.

Fernando cannot be very happy right now…he leaves Ferrari because he does not think they can win, and joins McLaren Honda. Then he shows up for testing, the engine is unsorted and he gets concussed and has to sit out the first race while his old team scores a podium…now in Malaysia the only team slower than McLaren is Manor GP, and Ferrari are showing podium pace…it looks like Fernando jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

What do you think of the rumours that Red Bull wants to take over the promoter role from CVC, promoting F1 itself and therefor would have to step aside as a competing team? Maybe together with Ecclestone, which could explain their constant whining about the new Formula 1?

I think you’re being a bit generous to Red Bull there, suggesting that they were ever friends to Renault.

My recollection is that they were all too happy to give Renault a good kicking in public even when they were winning everything immediately they didn’t think their engine was the best on the grid, and even after races which they’d actually won (in spite of the engine, apparently).

And I dont remember them -ever- making any positive comments from them about Renault (who actually worked incredibly closely with them to make the whole exhaust-blowing thing work so well) that went beyond boilerplate PR.

I’ve always imagined that it was Red Bull rather than Renault who were paying for Alain Prost’s involvement. And that he’d been hired to coach Christian Horner in how to talk publicly about your engine supplier.

Lots of speculation about new engine suppliers for F1. However, can anyone provide a good reason why any manufacturer would actually want to spend the sort of money required to enter, and then in all probability, be buried by Mercedes??
Seems more likely to me that Dieter will pull his F1 team, maybe go to Indy with it, and might sell TR to the Regie. However, Cyril may find it very hard to get his Board to go down that route, in which case there is reason to suspect that Renault might well cut it’s losses and leave as well, given that the French economy is pretty dire right now and that French Unions have made waves in the past, at Renault expenditure in F1.
So, it is quite possible that RBR & TR could be consigned to the history books, which would leave 16 cars, until Manor fails again, which can’t be too long either.
Then we are down to 14,and 3 engine suppliers. We all know that Force India are up against it financially, and Sauber clearly are too. Take them out of the series and you have Merc, Ferrari,McLaren, Williams & Lotus left, 10 cars, and I guess Bernie could then get 2 more Merc powered Williams and 2 Merc powered Lotus cars to give him 14 reliable cars, but by that time the fans will have given up entirely and he can then set about A, buying out CVC for pennies in the pound, and B replacing the current cars with more privateer teams and a cheaper engine option, that can be built by Cosworth as well as Merc/Ferrari/Honda……all makes logic to me, if one thinks of all that Bernie has said over the last 2-3 years.

I see from the latest on the Press Conference, that Abiteboul says Renault may try and buy Toro Rosso, or it may just quit as it doesn’t make financial sense to have these PU’s, which is what I’ve consistently said since they arrived.
Currently 20 cars, but if RBR quit, only 18 and say Dieter doesn’t want to sell TR but instead puts it into the WEC? One then has 16 cars, with 8 of them under immense financial strain….that can only lead to game over for F1….what other alternatives are there? Not many people have noted, that with the passing of Teams, there ends up with a leakage of supporters, for whom this or that team was “their team ” and although this type of fan does not make up the only type of fan, it is a fact that they exist and when the team they like closes down, they look to other motorsports or other sports in general, for their interest.
The whole concept of Billion Dollar PU’s at a time when the World is still in the embers of a Global finances catastrophe, was stupid beyond belief, and was only ever going to lead to tears. All it shows really, is just how out of touch the F1 Bubble is with the real world and the enthusiasts of the sport.

Bit stumped as to why RB wouldn’t try to turn to BMW as an engine partner for this V6 engine formula? They built a damn good V10 back in the day & I’d figure they’d have enough smarts to make a good & competitive V6, plus couldn’t there be some use for what they do in their roadcar division?

Red Bull have been sponsoring VW in the Dakar rally (held in South America…) and – as I read right here in the comments – WRC. So: VW it is! Switch happening mid season no less!

Just kidding. F1 is heading for a post-Red Bull era. And maybe a post-Renault era as well.

There is a point being raised around here: It’s undeniable that Merc have done a better job than the others and I firmly believe that the competitors’ inability to catch up (excluding Honda who are a year behind – and will be finishing races as much behind for the next months, I fear) says more about them than it says about Mercedes. However, given that the idea was to get new manufacturers to join, Honda (and possibly Ferrari) will need to make strides this year to prove that the regulations are not making it impossible to make up for a late entry (or a shoddy job) because that would effectively bar any further new entrants. Not that F1 seems capable of such strategic thinking, unfortunately.

Meanwhile Fernando and McLaren’s relationship seems to be heading for rocky waters already. Or is it simply that part of the “we’re all a lot older and wiser than we were in ’07” shtick is that Ron and Fernando will agree to disagree regularly and not hide it from the public? Could be refreshing.

A bit off topic, but just read an article in Forbes suggesting Luca diM may be the next F1 chairman. Notwithstanding the author of the article, any opinion if he does indeed become chairman? Could he be a positive agent for change?